Amyra Dastur Quotes

I finally understood: In order to contribute to Africa, I would have to know myself better and be clearer about my goals. I would have to be ready to take Africa on its own terms, not mine, and to learn my limits and present myself not as a do-gooder with a big heart, but as someone with something to give and gain by being there. Compassion wasn't enough

Learning what you don't want to do is the next best thing to figuring out what you want to do.

I'm sure that like anybody else, I'm probably the sum total of my life experiences. If I'm smart and I've gained any wisdom, I have learned something from each of those experiences including different jobs I've taken throughout my life. The problem is, sometimes you don't realize you've learned something until maybe years later.

The most delightful surprise in life is to suddenly recognise your own worth.

Sometimes the dreams that come true are the dreams you never even knew you had.

I never thought I'd be a person who would want to write books...I promise you not a single English teacher I've ever had would have thought that this would be going on right now.

People always ask me, when I had the idea for TOMS, did it change my life? As romantic and noble as it is, no it did not change my life. But when I went to Argentina on that first shoe-drop, it did change my life.

Early on in my career, I was more closed off in every way. I thought I was protecting myself; instead, I was robbing myself of all I could learn and experience.

I think if you were to talk to women who have run, both successfully and unsuccessfully, nearly all of them would say, "You learn so much." You learn about yourself, what you're capable of doing.... And it doesn't have to all happen when you're young - I mean, one of the most powerful women in American politics is Nancy Pelosi. She had five children. She didn't go into politics until her youngest child was in high school.... That's one of the great things about being a woman in today's world: You have a much longer potential work life than our mothers or our grandmothers did.

It's very weird to succeed at thirty-nine years old and realize that in the midst of your failure, you were slowly building the life that you wanted anyway.

Everything happens for a reason, and everything has a story, and if you take time to realise what your dream is and what you really want in life... whether it's sports, whether it's in other fields, you have to realise that there's always work to do.

I think I'm one of those people that needed to be seen by someone else to see myself. But then on the other hand, the way I do my work, I always try to only completely focus on my work, so when I do my work I'm only interested in my character. So I don't have an idea of what it means for my career. So this is why I don't feel like I need to be discovered, because I feel like even without being discovered, I will be fine.

I feel like something important has happened to me. Is this possible?

It's time to take a look at my failures and stop calling them successes. Now I can start working at something that can use me best.

I'm just learning every day and I hope to continue that until the day I die. I'm just trying to learn and experience as much as I possibly can. I look at acting, at how I look at being involved in a job and living my life and prioritising.

People are out there looking for jobs and realizing that they have to look within to do and create what the new and next thing will be. They can't rely anymore on what was usually given to them.

A job leads to a job, just like anything else, and it became apparent that this was probably what I was going to keep doing.

Nobody had ever told me that anything could be like this.

A good job isn't something you go out and find, it's something you discover while you're working.

There was a lot of soul searching and at the end of the day I looked back and realized it was all worth it and successful in its own way and it's led to me having this career that's much more in my hands and in my control than it would have been otherwise.

I live with someone, actor Peter Krause, who didn't find an interest in being an actor until the very end of college. So my message is: There's so much freedom left. There's no ticking clock. It's just not true.

When you build a career, you should never imitate anybody.

It's all about finding your voice in whatever your profession... it helps your confidence.

Falling in love is not the only adventure worthy of a young woman.

I suppose it's nice to have some surprise in life and to surprise yourself in life and see what else you can do.